Sor Juana for Beginners I: Sátira filosófica en redondillas

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz

I'm not a Sor Juana expert by any means, and I definitely don't enjoy the syllable-counting exercises that poetry freaks seem to live for.  However, I love, love, love the little I've read of Sor Juana's works over the years and am fascinated by her biography.  So who is Sor Juana, you ask?  The short answer is that she was a 17th-century Mexican poet (c. 1650-1694 or 1651-1695 depending on which of two books you choose to believe) who spent most of her life in a convent.  She was sometimes referred to as "the 10th muse" by her many admirers.  She closes out Elías L. Rivers' collection of Spanish Renaissance poetry, Poesía lírica del Siglo de Oro [Lyric Poetry of the Golden Age] (Cátedra, 1979 and 2004), an important distinction considering that she's the only New World writer to appear in that volume of Iberian peninsula greats.  By my math, that makes her the first great poet of the post-Conquest Americas and the last great poet of Spain's Siglo de Oro.  She might also have been the New World's first feminist--or at least a feminist avant la lettre.  In any event, you can decide that for yourself with the following poem, presented first in the original Spanish and then in translation (note: a redondilla is a poem written in stanzas of four octosyllabic verses with rhymes on the first and fourth lines and second and third lines; while the translation lacks some of the argumentative insistency to be enjoyed when you read the original out loud in Spanish--you can almost picture Sor Juana scoring points in a debate or in a court of law--I think it does a great job of capturing the spirit of the poem).

SÁTIRA FILOSÓFICA EN REDONDILLAS

     Hombres necios que acusáis

a la mujer sin razón,

sin ver que sois la ocasión

de lo mismo que culpáis:

     si con ansia sin igual

solicitáis su desdén,

¿por qué queréis que obren bien

si las incitáis al mal?

     Combatís su resistencia

y luego, con gravedad

decís que fue liviandad

lo que hizo la diligencia.

     Parecer quiere el denuedo

de vuestro parecer loco,

al niño que pone el coco

y luego le tiene miedo.

     Queréis, con presunción necia,

hallar a la que buscáis,

para pretendida, Thais,

y en la posesión, Lucrecia.

     ¿Qué humor puede ser más raro

que el que, falto de consejo,

él mismo empaña el espejo,

y siente que no esté claro?

     Con el favor y el desdén

tenéis condición igual,

quejándoos, si os tratan mal,

burlándoos, si os quieren bien.

     Opinión, ninguna gana;

pues la que más se recata,

si no os admite, es ingrata,

y si os admite, es liviana.

     Siempre tan necios andáis

que, con desigual nivel,

a una culpáis por crüel

y a otra por fácil culpáis.

     ¿Pues cómo ha de estar templada

la que vuestro amor pretende,

si la que es ingrata, ofende,

y la que es fácil, enfada?

     Mas, entre el enfado y pena

que vuestro gusto refiere,

bien haya la que no os quiere

y quejaos en hora buena.

     Dan vuestras amantes penas

a sus libertades alas,

y después de hacerlas malas

las queréis hallar muy buenas.

     ¿Cuál mayor culpa ha tenido

en una pasión errada:

la que cae de rogada,

o el que ruega de caído?

     ¿O cuál es más de culpar,

aunque cualquiera mal haga:

la que peca por la paga,

o el que paga por pecar?

     Pues ¿para qué os espantáis

de la culpa que tenéis?

Queredlas cual las hacéis

o hacedlas cual las buscáis.

     Dejad de solicitar,

y después, con más razón,

acusaréis la afición

de la que os fuere a rogar.

     Bien con muchas armas fundo

que lidia vuestra arrogancia,

pues en promesa e instancia

juntáis diablo, carne y mundo.

You Men [translator unknown]

     Silly, you men--so very adept

at wrongly faulting womankind,

not seeing you're alone to blame

for faults you plant in woman's mind.

     After you've won by urgent plea

the right to tarnish her good name,

you still expect her to behave--

you, that coaxed her into shame.

     You batter her resistance down

and then, all righteousness, proclaim

that feminine frivolity,

not your persistence, is to blame.

     When it comes to bravely posturing,

your witlessness must take the prize:

you're the child that makes a bogeyman,

and then recoils in fear and cries.

     Presumptuous beyond belief,

you'd have the woman you pursue

be Thais when you're courting her,

Lucretia once she falls to you.

     For plain default of common sense,

could any action be so queer

as oneself to cloud the mirror,

then complain that it's not clear?

     Whether you're favored or disdained,

nothing can leave you satisfied.

You whimper if you're turned away,

you sneer if you've been gratified.

     With you, no woman can hope to score;

whichever way, she's bound to lose;

spurning you, she's ungrateful--

succumbing, you call her lewd.

     Your folly is always the same:

you apply a single rule

to the one you accuse of looseness

and the one you brand as cruel.

     What happy mean could there be

for the woman who catches your eye,

if, unresponsive, she offends,

yet whose complaisance you decry?

     Still, whether it's torment or anger--

and both ways you've yourselves to blame--

God bless the woman who won't have you,

no matter how loud you complain.

     It's your persistent entreaties

that change her from timid to bold.

Having made her thereby naughty,

you would have her good as gold.

     So where does the greater guilt lie

for a passion that should not be:

with the man who pleads out of baseness

or the woman debased by his plea?

     Or which is more to be blamed--

though both will have cause for chagrin:

the woman who sins for money

or the man who pays money to sin?

     So why are you men all so stunned

at the thought you're all guilty alike?

Either like them for what you've made them

or make of them what you can like.

     If you'd give up pursuing them,

you'd discover, without a doubt,

you've a stronger case to make

against those who seek you out.

I well know what powerful arms

you wield in pressing for evil:

your arrogance is allied

with the world, the flesh, and the devil!

    

This poem appears here in honor of the México 2010 Reading Challenge hosted by Sylvia of Classical Bookworm.  More Sor Juana stuff, both in prose and verse, coming soon.